thoughts (and links) of a retired "social scientist" as he tries to make sense of the world.....

what you get here

This is not a blog which expresses instant opinions on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers as jumping-off points for some reflections about our social endeavours.

But
what about non-fiction books? Since
we were small children, we have all needed stories to help us give meaning to
the strange world we inhabit. In
this post-modern world, “narratives” indeed have become a fashionable adult
activity for the same reason. Just google “story telling in management” if you
don’t believe me – this
booklet is just one fascinating example which the search produced

At
University in the 60s I had been interested in how social systems held together
and why people (generally) obeyed - Max Weber’s classification of
political systems into – “traditional”, “charismatic” and “rational-legal” was an
eye-opener. But it was the sociologist Ametai Etzioni who first impressed me in
the 1970s with his suggestion that we behaved the way we did for basically three different types of
motives – “remunerative”, “coercive” and “normative” – namely that it was
made worth our while; that we were forced to; or that we thought it right. He
then went on to suggest (in his 1975 “Social Problems”) that our explanations
for social problems could be grouped into equivalent political stances -
“individualistic”, “hierarchical” or “consensual”.

During
the 1980s, when I was doing my (part-time) Masters in Policy Analysis, I registered
the potential of “Frame Analysis” (originating from Erving Goffman in 1974) which showed how different “stories” were used to make sense of complex social
events – but had no occasion to use it myself. Little did I realize that it was
becoming a central part of post-modernism’s
encouragement of diverse realities…

Michael
Thompson is an anthropologist who has used Mary Douglas’ cultural theory to
make The
case for clumsiness (2004) which, again, sets out the various stories which
sustain the different positions people take on various key policy issues – such
as the ecological disaster staring us in the face. There is a good interview with the
author here

Three
years ago I enthused about a book called Why
We Disagree About Climate Change which uses seven different lenses (or
perspectives) to make sense of climate change: science, economics, religion,
psychology, media, development, and governance. His argument is basically that
–

We understand science and
scientific knowledge in different ways

We value things
differently

We believe different
things about ourselves, the universe and our place in the universe

We fear different things

We receive multiple and
conflicting messages about climate change – and interpret them differently

We understand
“development” differently

We seek to govern in
different ways (eg top-down “green governmentality”; market environmentalism;
or “civic environmentalism”)

But
few authors have had the courage to apply this approach to the global economic
crisis. Most writers are stuck in their own particular “quadrant” (to use the
language of grid-group writing) and fail to do justice to the range of other
ways of seeing the crisis.

Misrule of
Experts? The Financial Crisis as Elite Debacle M Moran et al (2011) is a
rare essay which tries to plot the different types of explanation of the crisis
- eg as “accident”, “conspiracy” or “calculative failure” and then frames the
crisis differently as an “elite political debacle”

As I like
such lists, I should try to draw one
for the crisis and try to fit the existing literature into the various
categories! My starter would look like this –

About Me

Can be contacted at bakuron2003@yahoo.co.uk
Political refugee from Thatcher's Britain (or rather Scotland) who has been on the move since 1991. First in central Europe - then from 1999 Central Asia and Caucasus. Working on EU projects - related to building capacity of local and central government. Home base is an old house in the Carpathian mountains and Sofia

about the blog

Writing in my field is done by academics - and gives little help to individuals who are struggling to survive in or change public bureaucracies. Or else it is propoganda drafted by consultants and officials trying to talk up their reforms. And most of it covers work at a national level - whereas most of the worthwhile effort is at a more local level. The restless search for the new dishonours the work we have done in the past. As Zeldin once said - "To have a new vision of the future it is first necessary to have new vision of the past".I therefore started this blog to try to make sense of the organisational endeavours I've been involved in; to see if there are any lessons which can be passed on; to restore a bit of institutional memory and social history - particularly in the endeavour of what used to be known as "social justice". My generation believed that political activity could improve things - that belief is now dead and that cynicism threatens civilisationI also read a lot and wanted to pass on the results of this to those who have neither the time or inclination -as well as my love of painting, particularly the realist 20th century schools of Bulgaria and Belgium.A final motive for the blog is more complicated - and has to do with life and family. Why are we here? What have we done with our life? What is important to us? Not just professional knowledge - but what used to be known, rather sexistically, as "wine, women and song" - for me now in the autumn of my life as wine, books and art....

quotes

“I will act as if what I do makes a difference”
William James 1890.

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas"
JM Keynes (1935)

"We've spent half a century arguing over management methods. If there are solutions to our confusions over government, they lie in democratic not management processes"
JR Saul (1992)

"There are four sorts of worthwhile learning - learning about · oneself
· learning about things
· learning how others see us
· learning how we see others"
E. Schumacher (author of "Small is Beautiful" (1973) and Guide for the Perplexed (1977))

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell, 1950

Followers

der arme Dichter (Carl Spitzweg)

my alter ego

the other site

In 2008 I set up a website in the (vain) hope of developing a dialogue around issues of public administration reform - particularly in transition countries where I have been living and working for the past 26 years. The site is www.freewebs.com/publicadminreform and contains the major papers I have written over the years about my attempts to reform various public organisations in the various roles which I've had - politician; academic/trainer; consultant.